ATLANTA — Georgia’s top court heard arguments Tuesday on the constitutionality of a law passed to temporarily halt property assessment increases while homeowners coped with the recent recession and flood of foreclosures.

The request comes from Effingham County’s Board of Assessors, which is fending off a lawsuit by a group called We the Taxpayers that argues the board violated the law. The law was a major part of the Republican agenda in 2009 because it was designed to force local governments to cut expenses rather than raising taxes while the economy was weak.

It held assessments at the 2008 level for three years in every county except those that had recently conducted a comprehensive review of every parcel.

The court could sidestep the whole issue by agreeing with a local judge who threw out the group’s lawsuit. He concluded that group members had to first take their case individually to the Board of Equalization and then appeal to the county’s superior court.

Two members did, but the Equalization Board refused to consider whether the assessors violated the law. The pair appealed to the county court but agreed to a settlement before their cases came up.

During Tuesday’s arguments, two of the justices chastised lawyers for the assessors for insisting property owners go through the administrative step of the Equalization Board and then appeal individually.

“Why exhaust the administrative process if it is just going to not rule on (whether the assessors violated the law)?” asked Justice David Nahmias. “That just seems like a delay process.”

“That may seem like a delay process, but it’s the law,” answered the assessor’s lawyer Patrick O’Connor.

Justice Harold Melton added, “It is unseemly to insist on an administrative process and then not act on it.”

O’Connor said the non-lawyers on the average equalization board make them unprepared to get into such legal details. That’s why the Effingham board’s attorney advised avoiding the issue.

Nahmias and Melton also pushed Dana Braun, the lawyer for We the Taxpayers, about why the administrative process should be bypassed when state law specifies using all internal appeals before heading to court.

“This issue is a county-wide issue,” he replied, noting that it would be simpler to address it once rather than for each property owner.

The court didn’t offer clues about which way it may rule in the case. Typically, it hands down decisions in four to six months.